The present invention relates to an optical disk device which records data upon an optical disk such as a DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) or a CD (Compact Disk) or the like.
In the prior art, an optical disk device which irradiates laser light from a pickup head upon an optical disk, and which thereby performs recording of data such as images or voice or the like (image recording or sound recording), has been implemented and is generally known.
A prior art optical disk device comprises a front end (hereinafter termed “FE”) side processing section which performs recording and so on of data such as images or voice or the like upon an optical disk, an FE control unit which controls this FE side processing section, a back end (hereinafter termed “BE”) side processing section which outputs this data as a replay signal to the exterior of the device main body, and a BE control unit which controls this BE side processing section. A buffer memory and the above described pickup head are included in this FE side processing section.
With such a prior art optical disk device, if an error occurs while the FE side processing section is recording data upon the optical disk, recovery processing is executed according to an error code. In more detail, when this error occurs, first, the BE control unit transmits a confirmation command to the FE control unit, which confirms what type of error has occurred. Next, upon receipt of this confirmation command, the FE control unit transmits an error code to the BE control unit. Finally, the BE control unit executes recovery processing according to the error code, and restarts the recording.
In this procedure, the above described error code is a code which indicates the type of error which has occurred. Furthermore, the above described error brings about a state in which servo control cannot be performed in a normal manner, since damage or dirt or the like is present upon the recording surface of the optical disk. Moreover, by the above described recovery processing, is meant processing for rescuing an optical disk, even if an error has occurred during recording upon that optical disk, so as not immediately to make that optical disk into an optical disk which cannot be used. In concrete terms, by the above described recovery processing, is meant processing for commanding the FE processing means to determine a re-recording address upon the optical disk and a method of re-recording upon the optical disk, and to perform re-recording of the data, based upon this re-recording address and this re-recording method. With prior art optical disk devices, after this recovery processing, recording is recommenced if the recovery processing has succeeded.
On the other hand, a hard disk drive (HDD) of the type described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2001-160268 has been proposed.
However, with the above described prior art examples, a buffer memory is provided to the FE side processing section. Because of this, a discrepancy may occur between the address of the data which the BE control unit requests the FE control unit to record, and the address of the data which is actually recorded by the FE side processing section, due to the amount of delay imposed by the buffer memory. With a prior art optical disk device, because of this discrepancy, if an error has occurred, the BE control unit is not able accurately to ascertain up to what address it has been possible to record data upon the optical disk (or, to express it in another manner, to ascertain the error occurrence address). For this reason, during recovery processing, in a state in which the error occurrence address is unclear, this BE control unit performs the recovery processing according to the error code.
Thus, with a prior art optical disk device, the possibility has been high that a failure may occur in the recovery processing, so that recording fails. To give a detailed example: if, with a DVD recorder, an error has occurred during recording of AV data, then, when recommencing recording of the next AV data from a recording possible seek destination region, the control data for the optical disk becomes inaccurate. Due to this, such a DVD recorder does not perform recovery processing, but instead fails in performing recording upon the optical disk. In particular since, with the DVD-Video format, the data is recorded in a single passage, accordingly the recovery processing fails and the recording stops. Even if the recording is temporarily recommenced, since the control data for the optical disk is inaccurate, after the recording has been completed, a state of affairs may come to pass in which it is not possible to replay the optical disk properly. Here by control data is meant the addresses and so on of the data recorded upon the optical disk.
Accordingly there is the problem with a prior art optical disk device that, irrespective of whether the user has commanded image recording or sound recording or whatever upon the optical disk, the possibility is high that image recording or sound recording or the like upon the hard disk will fail.
On the other hand, with the device described in the above identified Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2001-160268, an error handling method is used when recording data upon the hard disk. Due to this, the context of that device is different from the context of recovery processing for not making an optical disk unusable. Accordingly, the above described problem cannot be solved with that device, by any means.
A feature of the present invention is to provide an optical disk device with which, when performing recovery processing, the recovery processing is performed using the error occurrence address, and with which the possibility of failure of recording upon the optical disk is reduced.